Sunday, 2 June 2013

The "Truth" about Science - Part 1

Here is Josephs first video debunked, I probably won't do more than this as I don't think if Joseph reads this any will sink in, he doesn't seem to know how to crack open a book or do a search that is not bible related so he is basically lost in the wilderness, I as his brother in humanity have tried to find him but he doesn't wish to be found. Sorry to use some biblical allegory, but it was too tempting not too.

Do you need a degree to talk about science, I do talk science; cosmology, biology, physics etc as you saw in the recent debate. I have no degree. A degree is not required for science, but knowledge of science is required, there are a lot of papers published that need to be read and evaluated. You need to adhere to the scientific method, which is basically when a theory or hypothesis fails a test it needs to be evaluated as to whether it is kept and modified or thrown away. If it fails badly enough and has no supporting evidence then it must be discarded.

Here you equate atheism with evolution, not true there are a lot of religious people that accept the evidence for evolution, there are even some atheists that using magical thinking not based in reality deny evolutions full picture, look into Raelians; they believe life was spawned and guided by alien hands, instead of Gods. Which do we have any evidence for, neither. Which is more likely, actually the aliens, as at least we know life exists here, it could exist elsewhere and be using this planet as an experiment, there is no evidence for this alien experiment however, so I discard it. God of course is infinitely more complex than an alien and thus requires infinitely more evidence to support.

As I have said before you can get all of the atheists I know back to the Lord God, if you just show us some real, peer-reviewed evidence. If you rely on here-say, anecdote and revelation then you are no different to the hundred thousand other religions that rely on the same, why should we trust you over them?

Science is not complicated; no it isn't, if anyone where to put the time in, and be open to having their most cherished beliefs brought into question it is easy.
"Science without religion is lame (I like how you couldn't bring yourself to say the rest of this quote), religion without science is blind". You do know what quote mining is don't you Joseph, you find a quote that agrees with your beliefs and disregard all others. Einstein also said in a letter to an atheist fan;"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a
lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a
personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the
unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our
science can reveal it."

He also said:"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions"

And finally:"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of
human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still
primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me)
change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold
according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the
original text."

Hopefully we can put to bed now you using Einstein to support your case. Regardless if he was religious so what, he also had a moustache, I don't see every scientists or atheist sporting one of them. His views are irrelevant, what is relevant is what is true and false, arguments to an authority figure are not evidence.

Evolution, and what people know about it; Banana man aka Ray Comfort, really, he should not be taken seriously after he redubbed one of his videos, lying to support his beliefs; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW05npbQHVs

You realise he is asking people off the street, not educated biologists or scientists. Even a half educated biologist will tell you evolution cannot take hold without life. Life as it is defined only happens with DNA, RNA used in Viruses is not considered life. But the various theories around abiogenesis do talk about RNA forming on primitive earth and how RNA would have formed early cells, that could have had evolution via natural selection effect them to the point of them moving into self-replicating DNA.
The reason for the language of speculation used here, is science doesn't know. We have only had 400 years at it, the first experiments into abiogenesis only 60 years ago, so we simply haven't had enough time to find out. We can say confidently "I DON"T KNOW" without being embarrassed as the only way to find something out is to start with "I don't know", if you start with an assumption "God dunnit" then you can't go anywhere.
My question to you, if you would abandon your faith should science determine the answer? If so then you are arguing the gaps, your god is the ever receding gaps of human ignorance.

I mean the guy who says the Big bang started evolution is either a ring-in or a horribly undereducated person, the big bang was 13.82 (+-0.037) billion years ago, and the earth formed 4.54 billion years ago, in a round-a-bout way the big bang did start evolution, just like it started making apple pie. It doesn't mean it was the direct cause. Then he goes onto say some asteroid hit a planet and caused the big bang... that is ludicrous, the big bang was a singularity a point of pure energy in which all matter, space and time was collapsed. We can't know what happened before the big bang as due to the physics behind it nothing that happened before the big bang could have effected what happened afterwards. We may be able to indirectly probe into what happened before, but again this is a god of the gaps. If we find evidence of the multiverse you as Sven did on the weekend will simply retreat to "well God must have started off the multiverse", you are using language of speculation here with this kind of statement "must have", why must he have, cause you say so? Do you have evidence?

A wise man once said "man will believe anything as long as it is not in the bible", heh you realise that has been attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. The same Napoleon who said "Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
But regardless, why does this make any point. I don't believe everything I read from any book, unless I know the author has some evidence to back up their claim, that there is some reference in the book as to where I can read more and get evidence. It would be like sitting down to read any book and simply taking it as fact without checking, it is foolish as the written word is actually more prone to error than the spoken word as it can have multiple authors editors and mistranslations, it can be a fabrication from the outset as any fiction book is.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" How do you know, what evidence do you have. If you say the bible, what corroborating evidence do you have. As the Hindu scriptures talk of Narayana (another name for Vishnu) creating the heavens and earth from his body and mind, there is no corroborating evidence so I don't accept it, you don't accept it why?

Darwin was commissioned to find evidence for evolution, yet you say earlier it started with him, which is it, it can't have started with him and him be commissioned to go find it? Regardless, according to his own words in The preface of the voyage of the Beagle he was on board as a naturalist, someone who is there simply to document and study flora and fauna, this was common practise on long voyages, just like Joseph Banks who visited Australia and gave his name to one of the flowers here, the Banksia.http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/preface.html
So where is your evidence that he was commissioned to find evidence for evolution?
It doesn't matter where he went, evolution has now been demonstrated to have occured in every location on the planet. I as an atheist and someone who accepts evolution have no desire to go to these islands, but if you look at all the places he visited I am sure you have probably been to some of them; http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/

It doesn't matter that one of the islands he visited that you picked in an attempt to make a point was called the holy cross, early explorers like most in their time were likely Christan, he also visited Tierra del Fuego (meaning land of fire), does that mean the Roman god Vulcan their god of fire is real, no. It just means some human with existing biases named the places, just like calling it enchanted...

There is no evidence that Evolution is a religion, they answered millions of years ago because as the Dover trial determined, the teaching of creationism or intelligent design is not science it is religion. The teachers have been, shock horror doing their job with these kids teaching them the current facts that science has determined from the available evidence. You are quoting Kent Hovind here as a "scientist" which is an argument from authority, and an authority currently serving time for tax evasion, and who got his science degrees from discredited organisations;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_hovind
So you are saying there is a massive cover up among not just scientists but the mass media as well. Some of these scientists and mass media types are surely Christians, wouldn't they prefer if evolution where false and their religion 100% true, wouldn't at least one of them in the last 50 years have leaked out this cover up... nope nothing. Try again.

Evolution says nothing about cosmology or cosmogony, the Big bang theory is part of the last two, it shows from evidence of the speed of receding extra-galactic objects, the number of observable bright objects, the chemical make-up of stars and the microwave background radiation and temperature of this background that the universe is 13.82 (+-0.037) billion years old, they have this figure with an accuracy approaching 99.9999%; http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/21/us-space-universe-idUSBRE92K15Q20130321
The earth formed about 4.54 (+/-1%) billion years ago, homo sapien aka modern man is at most 200,000 years ago, not 3 million. How do Christians fall for any lie, by being fallible creatures and the power of religious indoctrination. Evolution has evidence, you have yet to show any evidence for God or the creation.
Millions of years was not started by Charles Lyell, hmm have a look at the Hindu cycle of the universe; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_cycle_of_the_universe they were a lot earlier than Lyell and describe the Billions of years in each Brahma day, each Brahma day is a universes life.

And so what if Lyell later attacks God in his books, is your God so weak he can't stand up for himself, is your faith so weak that you can't read an opposing authors views. I oppose your views yet watch your videos, who is the weaker here.

Schofield added millions of years in his Bible, again so what. Just cause it is written down doesn't make it true, just because it is true doesn't mean it needs to be written down. Evolution didn't gain acceptance because of these people it gained acceptance because it was scientifically sound and made testable predictions, predictions that have been tested and found true. Darwin knew of no method for these changes from parents to offspring to be passed on, if DNA hadn't been found then he would have been proved wrong, Darwin also had no where near the access to fossils we have now, this is further supporting evidence, as is the genetic similarities between all living things that has been tested over and over again with genetic sequencing.

The Descent of Man had racism, again so what. Darwin was racist as were most people in his time, he also married his cousin and believed in homoeopathy. People are fallible and can be wrong. Newton believed in alchemy yet his ideas on motion where fairly right, Darwin was wrong on some things right on others, just I am sure if you look back into your past you have been wrong on some things and right on others. If anything you are proving my case, could the authors of the bible have been wrong on some things, specifically things they knew nothing about like cosmology and biology?

On the use of the word Race in the origin of species, I hope you realise that in biology at least Race has a specific non-racist meaning. Favoured races in the context of the book has to do with favoured traits for survival.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29

OHHHH and now you go to Hitler, couldn't resist could you. Is this the same Hitler who said in Mein Kampf "And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord."
Or who said in speeches "We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian", or "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ...we need believing people." - Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant
All of Hitlers troops also had "Got Mit Uns" on their belts, German for God With Us. So don't start their unless you like where it has now taken you.

Yes Aboriginal bodies are in the Smithsonian, it was a different time. A time in Australia before Aboriginals where allowed to own land or vote. Mistakes where made, but secular societies have the ability to say sorry, rather than simply ignore it or ask for forgiveness from God as religious societies often do.

The Bible isn't complicated as it is stories made up by illiterate herders 2500 years ago, that where wrote down many years later after a long game of Chinese whispers (telephone for Americans), then simply expanded upon by someone who wanted a sequel written.